


we'll be like spies

by TheSubtextMachine



Series: My Sylena Tumblr Prompts [2]
Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, BACK ON MY BULLSHIT, Denny's is mentioned, F/F, It’s victor!, Tumblr Prompt, crying happens, homophobic parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 08:15:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13830129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSubtextMachine/pseuds/TheSubtextMachine
Summary: Based on prompt from an anon: "sylena prompt, elena and her dad are tryinh to get back on speaking terms, victor meets syd, it doenst go too great. angst?"Or, three times that Elena realizes that this might be an awful idea.





	we'll be like spies

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, warning for Victor doing the whole homophobia thing

The first time that Elena figures out that this is a mistake, it’s 7:43 and Victor is exactly eight minutes late. She and Syd sit on the metal bench outside the local Denny's, and it's a balmy evening that leaves discomfort clinging to their skin alongside the sweat.

"Are you sure you want to meet him? I mean, after everything?" Elena asks, wiping her sweaty palms on the skirt that she wore to appease him, to make sure that he’d be on his best behavior around Syd. It makes her a bit more uncomfortable than she already is, but she doesn’t change into the pair of pants she put in her bag. 

"Do you not want me to meet him?" Syd asks, and they have the slightly hurt look on their face, like they're expecting Elena to say "it’s not me, it’s you" at every second.

"No, Syd! That’s not it at all, i-it’s just that I’m afraid that he’s going to do that think that he always does, the whole thing where he... y'know... the homophobia thing. He does it a lot and I don’t want to put you in the line of fire," Elena says as she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and cringes at the way that she can’t string a sentence together when it matters most.

Thankfully, Syd can speak the jumbled language of Nervous Elena, so the message lands with a grateful, but worried smile and a stretch of anxious silence.

"If he stands us up, do you just wanna go in and have a date night? You can change into the pants and we'll split appetizers?" Syd says, shooting a longing look towards the doors of the restaurant.

Elena imagines it for a moment, thinks about Syd under the warm restaurant lighting, laughing around bites of pancakes with too much syrup. 

"Is it weird that I hope he stands us up?" asks Elena, smiling for the first time that night.

"Maybe? I feel the same, though. Maybe we should set a time that we'll go in, and we can go under a different name so when he goes to the hostess, he'll be like ‘ I’m looking for the Elena Alvarez table' and she’ll be like, 'Elena Alvarez who? All I know is Ariel Wolfenstein and her delightful paleontologist spouse, Jenna Lincoln," rambles Syd, growing excited as they envisioned the scene in their head. 

"We can get disguises! That way, he won’t see us when he walks over to get a table for himself, so he can eat pancakes and wait for us to arrive," says Elena, adding on energetically as a vision of Syd in a blond wig came to her mind.

"That’s perfect! I can make you look all goth with my makeup!"

"It’s foolproof!" Elena said, before giggling and leaning into Syd to rest her forehead on their shoulder.

"If you want to go, we can. We could walk to one of the restaurants across the street, and eat there," Syd said, softly to Elena, who was still on her shoulder. At these words, Elena lifted her head to look Syd in the eye.

"Actually, I think I might-"

They were interrupted by the beep of a car horn, and sprang apart to the sight of Victor's car, the window on the driver's side rolling down as he waved sheepishly.

"So much for that," Elena muttered, before lifting herself and Syd from the bench to introduce them to her father.

—

The second time that night it becomes a bit obvious that this is all a mistake, the three had been sitting in thorny silence for at least a few minutes. Elena was trying to focus on Syd's presence next to her, instead of the presence of her father across from her. He had cleaned up his beard since the last time she saw him, and he was picking at his omelette with his fork, obviously lost in a stormy cloud of thought. 

Elena takes a slow sip of her water. Anticipation for the inevitable made her face feel hot under the light of the restaurant. She feels anxiety in her fingers, as she holds her spoon with a vice-like grip.

He breaks the silence.

"So, Syd. Are your parents okay with all of… this?" Victor asks, waving his hand as he trails off, his tone poisonous.

Elena's head snaps to Syd by her side, and tries of take in any and every detail. She sees the way that their ears a bit more red than usual, and their fingers fidgeting under the table. Elena then whips her head back to Victor, to give him a glare to the soundtrack of Syd stuttering over a complicated answer.

"U-um my parents a-are actually cool with it. They wo- they won’t drive me to p-pride parades or anything, because of the…" Syd trails off, pulling their hands out from under the table to give a trailing hand gesture, even though Elena is 99% sure that Victor has no idea what she’s referring to. 

"Do you go to pride parades?" Victor asks, trying to ask Elena the question as casually as possible. Elena could only imagine the kind of image that his mind conjured up, of Elena telling everyone about the thing he was so ashamed of in the loudest way she could. 

"Yes," she answers, wanting to torture him just a little bit, that resentment from everything that happened before leaking into that dinner.

"We haven’t marched yet. We might next time, with the lesbian book club," says Syd, faux-casual as she looks between Elena and Victor, trying to figure out the dynamic. 

"Lesbian book club?" Victor asks, on the verge of choking on his omelette. 

"Yeah, we go every month. They might get a float at the parade, if they can swing it. It’s definitely in the works. We're thinking of holding a bake sale. We signed up for brownies," adds Elena, clenching her first beneath the table and wondering if there was a way to teleport to another state through sheer force of will.

"Is Penelope helping out?" he asks, stilted as he tries to find the right way to talk about his former wife. 

"No, we've got it. She doesn’t have a vegan recipe anyway, so we're just going to find one online and try our hand," says Syd, taking a couple deep breaths and letting the air even out, even if they were all aware of the storm that was obviously brewing in Victor's mind. He appeared especially shocked by the normalcy of his daughter's new life, the sustainability of it. It was real, it was something she built, and it was something she built separate from him.

Pride and anger are two odd feelings to have concurrently, Victor realizes.

"Looks like you've really… done something, here. I can’t say I like it, but…" he trailed off again, which might’ve been the theme of the night.

The silence fills them all up uncomfortably, like a balloon stretched to its limit. 

"Y'know, there’s actually a lot that you and Syd have in common. Like video games! Syd really liked the newest Bloodsplosion game," Elena cut in, smiling with borrowed enthusiasm.

"You did? I fricken' loved it!" Victor says, his eyes widening almost comically, and soon, Victor and Syd were living through this common ground. They ramble at each other about gameplay and graphics, with the occasional sarcastic interjection from the ever-cynical Elena. 

There was a solid rhythm going, of eating interrupted by some question about the other's opinion of the game, quickly followed by a "it wasn’t that good, you two are just too caught up in the hype". The night suddenly seems possible, as things become nice and easy. Elena breathes a sigh of relief, content with her knowledge that she can make the insurmountable hill of her relationship with her father okay, as long as they all had the right topic.

——

Things were going well, until Elena thought, for the third time, that tonight was fated for disaster. It happened all at once, at what was nearly the end. 

"The gameplay was epic! Although you know what really pissed me off?" starts Victor, excited and boyish. This Victor was different than the hardened bigot who abandoned her at her quince, this was the father that she knew and and loved, who was a bit helpless but endlessly caring. 

"What?" Syd asks, fingers still circled around a fork even though her plate's clean.

"That whole nonbinary option, or whatever it was."

Everything in Syd clenches, and Elena feels her eyes widen to saucers in an angry brand of shock. This reaction, however silent, is caught by Victor, who stops still in his tracks.

"Shit, is that like, one of the social justice warrior things that you guys care about? I mean, I get the whole gay thing, but girls are girls and guys are guys. And the whole neither thing is just-"

"We should leave," Syd interrupts, even though Victor is turning a bit red and the bill hasn’t been paid yet. 

"No, you two will stay here. Because if my daughter believes in that kind of nonsense, and if she made you believe in it too-" says Victor, speaking to Syd as if he’s afraid that his daughter corrupted them. Elena's eyes are big and shiny with panic, and she can feel Syd's panic.

"I’m not going to yell at you in a Denny's, dad. Just take this twenty, we'll walk home," Elena says as she reaches into her messenger bag for some cash. Her hand brushes against the pants, and she mourns for the night that almost was.

"Two girls at night? Hell no, I’m driving," says Victor, and is voice is slowly rising and Elena slams a twenty on the table, hard enough that the silverware shakes with the impact.

"Elena, I am you father and you will-" 

"Syd and I met because we were protesting that there weren’t enough nonbinary options. Complain all you want, but we're leaving. I knew this was going to be a bad idea," Elena says as she starts shuffling out of the booth. Syd follows, her movements stilted, still infused with shell shock.

"Don’t overreact, this was going well! Don’t ruin a good thing, Elena," says Victor, still glued to his seat, as if the night could be salvaged.

"Thanks for the dinner, Mr. Alvarez," Syd says, their hand reaching out to Catch Elena's wrist as the pair leaves the restaurant. Elena only looks back once, only to see her father, staring right back at her. When she whips her head back to the door, it feels like a decision. 

She pushes the door open, thanks the hostess with a choked voice, and feels the cool night air hit her skin with a vengeance.

"W-we should start walking now. So he can’t catch up," says Syd, and Elena is shocked back into reality at their voice, at the feeling of their fingers on her wrist.

Elena spins around to face Syd, and takes their hands in hers.

"We'll need to be quick. Should we run?" asks Elena, and despite the cool night air that flows around her, her mind is cloudy with the closeness of Victor. They need a strategy, but nothing comes to mind.

"I can’t run, not like this. Let’s hide out somewhere," Syd grips Elena's hands more tightly, and her face shines with a sad smile, "We'll be like spies. Keep our eyes on the parking lot so we know when he leaves."

Elena is suddenly so overwhelmed by everything, her love for Syd and her hate for Victor, that tears begin to leak from the corners of her eyes. She nods shakily, and Syd pulls her in for a fierce hug.

"Let’s do that. I’ll call Mom, and she’ll take us home," Elena whimpers, tightening her embrace as everything flows more freely. It takes a few seconds, and a significant tear stain on Syd's shoulder, and Elena separates, desperately swiping away her tears as she fastens her bag and begins to walk out, one hand still connected to Syd's. 

"Where to?" asks Syd, and the emotions overtake them too. They try to blink as quickly as they can, the memories of the panic washing over them relentlessly, worsening every time.

"Ice cream?"

"Ice cream."

They walk across the sidewalk to a tacky ice cream parlor, both trying to stop their tears while still holding hands with desperation.

"I’m so, so sorry, Syd."

"It’ll be fine. Just make sure that your mom doesn’t out me to him, or anything like that. I just don’t want to be the target of all that," said Syd.

"That can definitely be done!"

"And you know what else can be done?" prompted Syd, forcing a tight smile and knocking their shoulders good-naturedly against Elena's.

"Do tell."

"You can put on those pants. You’re so uncomfortable that it makes me uncomfortable," says Syd, and the smile comes a bit easier as they focus on Elena and the night around them instead of the dinner.

"Thank god."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this!! If you liked this, you can follow my tumblr (TheSubtextMachine), and I first you have one in mind, feel free to leave a request! I love reading your comments


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